Your Name

by Huw 26 November 2016

I've always veered away from Anime - I've never quite understood it, always finding the tropes too cliche and its treatment of women a tad too subjective. This isn't to say I don't like aspects of it, Anime has some great and endearing qualities. Who would I be if I were to discount such masterworks as those of Studio Ghibli, the eclectic jazz delights of Cowboy Beebop and the hedonistic Akira just because of where it had come from and a few bad experiences of Anime in my youth, so it is with a glad heart that I didn't discount Your Name - in fact I'm damn glad as this film is really rather good.

Director Makoto Shinkai pulls together an exceptional tale, falling somewhere between the Star Trek episode The Inner Light and Freaky Friday (Foster not Lohan). It tells the story of two teenagers Mitsuha (Mone Kamishiraishi) and Taki (Ryunosuke Kamiki) who find their minds inexplicably displaced, awaking to find their spirits placed in the body of the other. Their lives from this point on become intertwined as they are forced to adapt and to learn to live with each other despite the distance and disconnection between their quite separate and different lives. This central gimmick provides much of the humour - seeing a teenage boy experience being a woman for the first, second and third time is a delight with an excellent recurring gag that fully encapsulates the male mind and provides a wonderful level of levity in the film's darker and more tense moments.

The animation is second to none and carries on a grand tradition of hand drawn animation that has been gradually dying off in the West. It's stupendously stylised with subtle and verdant differences between its two locations; the hyper realistic Tokyo with its shimmering surfaces, and the grand and majestic countryside of Itomori, coloured with hues of green and blue. Each is alive in its own way, offering another dichotomy between the star crossed pair. The animation alone is reason to see this film - much like Ghibli before it, Your Name stands out for embracing the form and altering it stylistically when it sees fit.

Your Name juggles a large number of themes and concepts and delivers on all of them; the juxtapositions it provides revel in a beautiful portrait of adolescence and melancholia. If you're not adverse to Anime then this film is a must see, and for those like me who have trouble with the genre this is a perfect opportunity to put aside your irrational dislike and embrace this impressive feat of both animation and story telling. There is nothing quite like it.